Play or pause button emoji meaning

The play or pause button emoji shows a right-pointing triangle next to two straight vertical lines, designed to look like the buttons used in media players. This emoji represents the choices of either playing or pausing, making it useful in conversations about starting or stopping actions, particularly those related to videos, music, or other multimedia activities. Its simple design makes it easy to recognize and versatile in meaning, often used to symbolize decision-making, taking action, or taking a moment to pause and reflect. It is a useful way to visually communicate ideas about controlling timing or progress in activities or tasks.

The play or pause button emoji was approved in Unicode 6.0 and added in Emoji 1.0, see related proposal L2/09114